The History of the RMS Titanic

Designing the Titanic

Thomas Andrews, the chief designer of the RMS Titanic started to oversee the blueprints in 1907. J Bruce Ismay thought of the idea to build a ship called the Titanic. This is where the "Ship of Dreams" and the unsinkable ship began, When the Titanic actually sank the designer of the ship got into a lifeboat.

Mar 31, 1909

Construction Begins

Facts about constructionConstruction of the RMS Titanic began on March 31st 1909 in Belfast. Belfast is located in Northern Ireland, Titanic was located in the Harland and Wolff shipyard, The Harland and Wolff shipyard was also where two other white star liners were built, the Olympic and the Briannic.

Apr 6, 1910

Fully Framed

On April 6th 1910 the RMS Titanic was fully framed in the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast Ireland. This picture shown is of the Titanic when it was just framed in wood. The shipyard was 840 feet long and 240 feet wide which was enough room to have two liners side by side.

Oct 1, 1910

Steel in place

In the month of October in 1910 the Titanic's steel plates were put into place and it began to look like a ship. There were over 3 million rivetes used in the Titanic's hull. Titanic's steel was known to be high quality of elasticity, it was Siemens-Martin formula.

May 31, 1911

Launch of the Titanic

Titanic is launched in front of a crowd of about 100,000 people in Belfast. It was the second olympic class liner to take to the water. After it was taken out of the water to the dry dock.

Jul 1, 1911

Deciding a date

Not many people know this fact but the Titanic was supposed to sail earlier than it did. In July 1911 Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line proposed a sailing date. They agreed that the date would be March 20th 1912.

Oct 1, 1911

Making a new date

The Titanic's maiden voyage was scheduled to be on March 20th 1912 but that soon changed. In October 1911 the date was changed since the Olympic (another white star liner and the largest ship in the world at that time) was badly damaged in a collision with the Royal Navy Cruiser HMS Hawke. Therefore the workers of the Titanic repaired the Olympic, which slowed down the work on Titanic, so the date was changed to April 10th 1912. This is a picture of the HMS Hawke after the collision.

Feb 3, 1912

Titanic enters the dry dock

The RMS Titanic is now fully framed so the ship enters the dry dock to have its propellers framed. Not only are the propellers framed but the ship's hull is painted. The Titanic had 3 propellers, the two on the outside had a smaller swing than the center propeller.

Apr 2, 1912

Sea trials of Titanic

On April 2nd 1912, sea trials of the Titanic were conducted. The sea trials were actually delayed 24 hours because of the weather but eventually the Titanic got to testing. The RMS Titanic engine test showed that the engines reached a speed of 21 knots which is equal to 24 miles per hour. Reaching a speed of 21 knots was actually pretty fast for a ship as big as the Titanic was. This picture shows one of the Titanic's engines.

Apr 10, 1912

Maiden Voyage

On April 10th 1912 the Titanic takes it Maiden Voyage departing from Southampton. The Captain of the ship, E.J, Smith, comes aboard at 7:30 am. The Titanic leaves Southampton at 12 noon and goes across the English Channel to Chersbourg and arrives at 6 pm. Some people from Southampton get off and the Titanic accepts new passengers. The Titanic starts to head to Ireland, the new passengers aboard the Titantic do not know that just a few days later a large amount of them will be gone.

Apr 14, 1912

Ice Fields?

At 1:42 pm on April 14th 1912 the Titanic recieves messages from the Baltic (another ship) that there are large quantities of field ice. That same day at 11:40 pm Titanic is moving at a little less than 21 knots the lookouts ring the warning bell three times and make a call saying "iceberg right ahead!" The engines are told to stop and then full asteam ahead and while this is going on the water tight doors are to close. These orders were by the First Officer William Murdoch.

Apr 15, 1912

Titanic sinks

On April 15th 1912 many people aboard the Titanic will take their last breath, others will be lucky to get on a lifeboat. Between 12:05am - 2:20 am the following happened: distress calls to Carpathia who starts her 58 mile journey, lifeboats are lowered with 12 people being the least, the band started to play, and the titanic splits into two and the bow goes under. The stern rises out of the water then goes under after,

Apr 22, 1912

Survivors and the Mackay Bennett

Almost ten days after the sinking of the Titanic and just four days after taking the survivors to shore on the Carpathia it was time to find the misfortunate. On April 22nd 1912 the White Star Line hired another boat to help the Mackay Bennett (a ship) who was overwhelmed by finding 300 bodies. Pictured is Madeline Astor who was 5 months pregnant when she was on the Titanic. She survived and refused to take her life jacket off until at a doctor, her lifejacket is the only one left in the world.

Sep 1, 1985

Finding the Titanic

During the summer of 1985 a wealthy man from Texas became obsessed with the Titanic and was determined to find it. He scanned the ocean floor using the state of the art sonar system then on September 1, 1985. The Titanic was found exactly where it landed when it sank on April 15th 1912.

Jul 13, 1986

Second Exploration

On July 13th 1986 Ballard took another expedition down to the Titanic. This time a robot named Jason Junior (JJ) was used to capture video. JJ took footage of the Grand Staircase and saw that a chandelier survived the journey to the bottom of the ocean. When Ballard was done searching this time he put a memorial plaque on the stern of the Titanic in memory of those people who had lost their lives on that horrible night.

Jan 1, 1987

Artifacts

The RMS Titanic Inc recovered and brought artifacts to the surface from the Titanic. This took course during the year of 1987. Robert Ballard did not take any artifacts when he went to visit the Titanic, he considered it "grave robbing."

Sep 1, 1995

James Cameron visits the Titanic

In the beginning of September of 1995 James Cameron began to film his dives to the Titanic. The footage that he took would be used in the movie of the Titanic. Soon he would start to film the Titanic.

Sep 18, 1996

Filming the movie

Movie factsOn September 18th 1996 James Cameron started to film the Titanic movie featuring Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio. The replica of the Titanic was 775 feet and remained floating in a 17 million-gallon tank.This movie costed 200 million dollars to make and is the most expensive movie ever made.

Apr 6, 2012

The 3D movie

On April 6th 2012 the 3D movie of the Titanic was released. It is the same movie only in 3D, which made everything pop out at the audience. Many reviews of the movie say that any seat in the theatre was a good seat. This was in honor of the 100th year of the sinking of the Titanic.

Apr 10, 2012

Rose Petals

On April 10th 2012 there was a press conference where two large wooden crates of 1.5 million rose petals were put on deck of a boat. These crates of roses would be dumped into the water right where the Titanic sank. This memorial service would happen on April 14th on the 100th anniversary of the sinking.